


The Best Medicine

by tofansesmuna



Category: We Happy Few (Video Game)
Genre: Doctors & Physicians, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 19:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofansesmuna/pseuds/tofansesmuna
Summary: The world around him is white, and Arthur can’t see a bloody thing.The man comes in every day (at least he assumes it’s every day), sickeningly chipper as he sticks needles into his body. Trial by trial, over and over, flooded with solutions that make his head float and burn. All in the hopes that one of them will do it. One of them will fix him.





	The Best Medicine

Arthur woke with a buzzing pain in head, facing skyward at an unfamiliar ceiling. Granted, he couldn't exactly see. He noticed vaguely that there was an absence of weight on his face where his glasses usually sat; a fact that would have alarmed him much more if his head wasn't filled with bees. Despite his foggy state, he did make the instant connection that his ceiling was not white. It was...what color was it? Something bright, like orange or teal. He couldn't quite remember, but the combined realizations were enough to push him to lift himself up into a sitting position. Except he didn’t. Instead, his limbs were jerked back by something rough looped around his ankles and wrists. He looked down and could make out bars of black against his pale wrists, but couldn’t see far enough to distinguish anything further besides the basic shape of his legs and the long rectangular shape of his shoes. 

Arthur tested the restraint on his left arm, then once again on his right, finding both to be too strong for his weakened muscles. He looked to his right and was met with more blank whiteness. I suppose a wall, he conceded. He turned his head a bit to the left, and found more white, but the crisp lines allowed him to define it as a large box of some sort. Perhaps a night table or a cupboard. That was about all he could make of his surroundings. He could not hope to estimate how large the room was, due to the one dimensional white. He could not identify if there were any exits, and as far as he could tell, there were no other people in the room with him. 

Unsatisfied with his limited discoveries, but finding himself unable to do anything more, he rested his head back onto the pillow beneath it, and stared at the ceiling. 

Time passed. At least he assumed, seeing as there were no identifiable clocks and no windows. As time, presumably, went on, Arthur’s head gradually cleared. The buzzing continued to fade, his mind could now perform thought without discomfort, and with his gradual return to lucidity, he became risingly, increasingly, panicked. His thoughts raced in a fearful flurry to figure out where he was, how did he get here, who had tied him up like this, and what was going to happen. You’ve been abducted, you dolt, he told himself. They could have taken you to harvest your organs one by one and sell them on the black market. Then when they’ve taken all they can from you, they’ll dump you off Ivy Cliff into the sea. The more logical side of Arthur interjected that the likelihood of a mafia still existing in the proximity of Wellington Wells was incredibly unlikely, and that they had no need to take his organs if they had no one to sell them to. Who said anything about a mafia? His inner voice retorted. In all likelihood it’s just your friendly neighborhood psychopath, hopped up on an extra dose of Joy and thinking that you’re a rabbit with a colony of butterflies in your stomach, or some other hogwash. 

After a while, he grew tired debating himself, and his fear gave way to utter boredom. He tried repeatedly to doze off, but the brightness of the pristine room kept him awake. Eventually, Arthur became so bored that he began to wish for the alleged Joy crazed lunatic to burst into the room holding a knife, if only to give him something new to look at. He was gazing disinterestedly down at his left hand, as his long fingers tried to pick at the black restraint, which he had found some time ago to be leather. Suddenly the sound of a door opening made his head snap up. Crisp footsteps immediately followed. They sounded like they were coming somewhere from his left, but he couldn’t see past the damn box thing only a foot or two from his side. In the silence of the white room, they resonated spectacularly. The footsteps traveled, coming closer and closer, until Arthur was eye level with a strange, trunk like shape, only distinguishable from the walls behind it because of its obvious movement. Arthur’s gaze moved upward, until it reached the top of the figure, a circle of white sitting on a peach cream neck, and punctuated at the very top by a neat line of brown hair. Arthur felt unnecessarily shocked when the figure spoke. 

“Well! Hello there, Mr….” the man’s circle of white (which he now assumed must be a mask), tilted downward to look at a clipboard in his hands, “...Hastings? Mr. Hastings! Wonderful. How are you feeling today, Mr. Hastings?” The man laughed to himself as if he had just told a joke. “Well,” he began amiably, “I suppose that’s a bit of an obvious question, isn’t it? Considering where you are.” Arthur was completely dumbfounded by the man’s ridiculously casual greeting. He couldn’t even speak. Which didn’t particularly matter, because the man kept right on talking. “Before we get started, I’d like to do a brief once over of the information I have. Formality, of course. Just to be certain we’ve got ourselves the right patient.” He laughed again. “Now, I’d like you to give me a nod or a ‘yes’ if it sounds right, and just correct me if something isn’t perfect. Wonderful. Alright, then. You are Arthur E. Hastings, correct?” 

Arthur was still thoroughly flabbergasted by the cheeriness of the man, but swallowed and hesitantly responded, “...Yes?” 

“Good!” The man said. He bent his head into his clipboard again, hummed curiously, then lifted his head to look at Arthur. “Just for the sake of getting to know each other, what does that little ‘E’ stand for, hm?” 

“Oh, um, E-Ernest.” The man let out a hearty guffaw. 

“Ernest?” He repeated. “My, that’s unfortunate. Now, then, Mr. Hastings, how old are you?” His head was reeling at how quickly the man was able to change direction; like goldfish, he was. Not to mention he had just mocked his name! Just where the hell was he? A hint of annoyance bled into his voice as he replied, “I’m 32.” The man hummed again.

“Alrighty, and your birthday is August 12, 1934?” he merely nodded in response. This unorthodox questionnaire continued until the man had reviewed Arthur’s entire medical history. Or at least, what records remained of it. The man gave a sigh of contentment as he set the clipboard on top of the box-table. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, we can finally get down to the nitty gritty, eh, Mr. Hastings?” 

“Excuse me.” Arthur interrupted. The man paused.

“Yes?” He finally answered. 

“I really don’t mean to be rude, but what the bloody hell is happening?” Whether it be the possible remnants of drugs in his system, brain damage from being conked over the head, or maybe just an extreme irritation at his circumstances fanned by every cheerful little remark from the man before him, Arthur was feeling loose-lipped and quite finished. “Where am I?” He continued. “Why am I here, why am I strapped down to a table, where are my glasses, and, honestly, who on earth are you?” The man had remained worryingly quiet the entire time, but at Arthur’s last question, he happily interjected. “Oh, goodness! That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I’ve been able to call you Mr. Hastings the whole darn time, but you - yes, you don’t really know anything, do you? Certainly. Of course. So sorry, Mr. Hastings, you may call me ‘Doctor.’” 

“Doctor…” Arthur coaxed.

“Doctor.” He said firmly. Arthur’s eyes squinted in confusion. 

“Doctor Doctor?” The man chuckled fondly, reaching forward and tapping Arthur on the side of the head with his index finger. “How silly. I suppose you’re still a bit out of it, aren’t you? No, Mr. Hastings. Just ‘Doctor.’ You may call me ‘Doctor.’” He repeated twice, as if concerned that Arthur would misunderstand him again. 

The man, Doctor, pulled away and moved to the box like table. The rolling sound of a drawer opening followed, and the Doctor stood back up holding two strange, limp, bright pink things in his hand. As he began to pull them over his hands, Arthur identified them as gloves. When the Doctor had finished putting on the left, he switched to the right, stretching his fingers dramatically, creating strange, fan like shapes in Arthur’s vision. The Doctor held his right hand up in the air and pulled on the bottom of the glove. Then, with a snap of latex, the Doctor’s circle of white turned towards him. “So,” He said cheerfully, “Shall we begin?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Forewarning: I am extremely inconsistent with updates. But it’s almost always certain that I will update again. I hope you liked it; feel free to comment. I love feedback!


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